Neil Trevett, the current president of Khronos Group and a vice president at NVIDIA, made an on-the-record statement to acknowledge the start of the Vulkan API. The quote came to me via Ryan, but I think it is a copy-paste of an email, so it should be verbatim.

Many companies have made great contributions to Vulkan, including AMD who contributed Mantle. Being able to start with the Mantle design definitely helped us get rolling quickly – but there has been a lot of design iteration, not the least making sure that Vulkan can run across many different GPU architectures. Vulkan is definitely a working group design now.

So in short, the Vulkan API was definitely started with Mantle and grew from there as more stakeholders added their opinion. Vulkan is obviously different than Mantle in significant ways now, such as its use of SPIR-V for its shading language (rather than HLSL). To see a bit more information, check out our article on the announcement.

Linux.com have just released benchmarks of the new Raspberry Pi 2 Model B with its improved processor and RAM. Benchmarking a Pi is always interesting as you must find applications which are reasonable for this device to use, with webserver software being a decent choice to compare to ODroid-U2, Radxa and the Beaglebone Black. openSSL 1.0.1e,DES and AES cbc mode ciphering and Blowfish were all tested with the Pi performing slowly but improved from the previous generation and certainly decent for a $35 piece of hardware. In addition both a full KDE desktop and KDE/Openbox were successfully installed with Openbox the recommended choice. Get all the results right here.

"Released in February, the Raspberry Pi Model 2 B is an update to the original board that brings quad cores for six times the performance of the original, 1 gigabyte of RAM for twice the memory, and still maintains backwards compatibility. The many CPU cores are brought about by moving from the BCM2835 SoC to the BCM2836 SoC in the Raspberry Pi 2."

Gigabyte's Force H3X gaming headset sports the 50mm neodymium drivers we have become used to, with a decent frequency response range of 20Hz to 20KHz. The microphone is a bit different, using two 2mm pickup drivers on each side for a total of four but from the testing Modders Inc performed it did not help with the quality of your recorded audio. This does not matter so much on a gaming headset but this is perhaps not the best choice for a budding YouTube star. For audio in gaming Modders Inc does give the headset good marks and they also found it to be very comfortable over long periods of time, definitely worth checking out if you are in the market for a new headset to game with.

"Don't you hate that when you are camping with a sniper rifle and all of the sudden some one sneaks up behind you and puts a knife through your head? Of course! We have all been there. Don't you wish you heard that guy who was sneaking up on you? Maybe then you could have switched to a Desert Eagle …"

With MWC in full swing Intel showed off their mobile silicon to Ryan and to The Tech Report who compiled complete specifications of the Cherry Trail based Atom x5-8300 and 8500 as well as the x7-8700. All three of these chips will have an Intel designed XMM 7260 LTE modem as well as WiFi and NFC connectivity with the X7 also featuring Intel WiGig. You can also expect RealSense, True Key facial recognition and Pro Wireless Display to send secure wireless video to compatible displays for meetings. Check out the full list of stats here.

"Intel says the dual-core Atom x3-C3130 is shipping now, while the quad-core Atom x3-C3230RK is coming later in the first half of the year. The LTE-infused Atom x3-C3440 will follow in the second half. In all, the chipmaker names 19 partners on board with the Atom x3 rollout, including Asus, Compal, Foxconn, Pegatron, Weibu, and Wistron."

HP announced their updated Spectre x360 at Mobile World Congress. Like the Lenovo Yoga, it has a hinge that flips the entire way around, allowing the laptop to function as a 13.3-inch tablet with a 1080p, IPS display. There are two stages between “tablet” and “laptop”, which are “stand” and “tent”. They are basically ways to prop up the touch screen while hiding the keyboard behind (or under) the unit. The stand mode is better for hands-free operation because it has a flat contact surface to rest upon, while the tent mode is probably more sturdy for touch (albeit rests on two rims). The chassis is entirely milled aluminum, except the screen and things like that of course.

The real story is the introduction of Core i-level Broadwell. The 12.5-hour battery listing in a relatively thin form-factor can be attributed to the low power requirements of the CPU and GPU, as well as its SSD (128GB, 256GB, or 512GB). RAM comes in two sizes, 4GB or 8GB, which will depend slightly on the chosen processor SKU.

A while ago, LG licensed WebOS from HP for use in their smart TVs and, as we found out during CES, smart watches.

The LG Urbane LTE is one such device, and we can finally see it in action. It is based around (literally) a circular P-OLED display (320 x 320, 1.3-inches, 245 ppi). Swirling your finger around the face scrolls through the elements like a wheel, which should be significantly more comfortable to search through a large list of applications than a linear list of elements -- a lot like an iPod (excluding the Touch and the Shuffle). That said, I have only seen other people use it.

The SoC is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400, clocked at 1.2 GHz. It supports LTE, Wireless-N, Bluetooth 4.0LE, and NFC. It has 1 GB of RAM, which is quite a bit, and 4GB of permanent storage, which is not. It also has a bunch of sensors, from accelerometers and gyros to heart rate monitors and a barometer. It has a speaker and a microphone, but no camera. LG flaunts a 700 mAh battery, which they claim is “the category's largest”, but they do not link that to an actual amount of usage time (only that it “go[es] for days in standby mode”).

You know that a week will be busy when companies start announcing a day or two early to beat the flood. While Game Developers Conference starts tomorrow, Quixel published their Jungle demo to YouTube today in promotion of their MEGASCANS material library. The video was rendered in Unreal Engine 4.

Their other material samples look quite convincing. The vines on a wall (column in this case) is particularly interesting because it even looks like two distinct layers, despite being a single mesh with displacement as far as I can tell. I don't know, maybe it is two or three layers. It would certainly make sense if it was, but the top and bottom suggests that it is single, and that is impressive. It even looks self-occluding.

Pricing and availability for the library is not yet disclosed, but it sounds like it will be a subscription service. The software ranges from $25 to $500, depending on what you get and what sort of license you need (Academic vs Commercial and so forth).

Mobile World Congress (MWC) and Game Developers Conference (GDC) severely overlap this year, and not just in dates apparently. HTC just announced the Vive VR headset at MWC, which was developed alongside Valve. The developer edition will contain two 1200x1080 displays with a 90Hz refresh rate, and it will launch this spring. The consumer edition will launch this holiday. They made sure to underline 2015, so you know they're serious. Want more information? Well that will be for Valve to discuss at GDC.

The confusing part: why is this not partnered with Oculus? When Michael Abrash left Valve to go there, I assumed that it was Valve shedding its research to Facebook's subsidiary and letting them take the hit. Now, honestly, it seems like Facebook just poached Abrash, Valve said “oh well”, and the two companies kept to their respective research. Who knows? Maybe that is not the case. We might find out more at GDC, but you would expect that Oculus would be mentioned if they had any involvement at all.

Valve will host an event on the second official day of GDC, March 3rd at 3pm. In other words, Valve will make an announcement on 3/3 @ 3. Could it involve Left 4 Dead 3? Portal 3? Will they pull a Crytek and name their engine Source 3? Are they just trolling absolutely everyone? Will it have something to do with NVIDIA's March 3rd announcement? Do you honestly think I have any non-speculative information about this? No. No I don't. There, I answered one of those questions.

We recently reviewed a new small form factor NUC PC from Intel powered by Broadwell. That i5-powered NUC5i5RYK will soon be joined by an even higher end Broadwell NUC (NUC5i7RYH) equipped with an i7-5557U CPU and Iris 6100 graphics.

According to FanlessTech, this slightly thicker NUC will come as a barebones system with a processor, motherboard, and wireless card pre-installed in a case with customizable lids (to add NFC, wireless charging, or other features). Note that, unlike the Broadwell i5 version we reviewed, this model supports 2.5” SSDs.

External I/O includes:

Front:

2 x USB 3.0 ports (one charging capable)

1 x Audio jack

1 x IR sensor

Rear:

2 x USB 3.0 ports

1 x Gigabit Ethernet RJ45

1 x Mini HDMI 1.4a

1 x Mini DisplayPort 1.2

Internally, the NUC5i7RYH is powered by a dual core (with Hyper-Threading) i7-5557U processor clocked at 3.1 GHz base and 3.4 GHz turbo with 4MB cache and 28W TDP. The processor also features Intel’s Iris 6100 GPU which our own Scott Michaud estimates it at 48 execution units and 845 GFLOPS of performance. He further speculates that it gets to a similar level of theoretical performance as the Intel Iris 5100 graphics (used in Haswell CPUs) using more (but lower clocked at up to 1050 MHz) shaders.

The Iris 6100 GPU is likely to be the highest processor graphics we will see with Broadwell-U. It supports 4K resolutions at 24Hz as well as video decode (though apparently not hardware accelerated) of VP8, VP9, and H.265 (HVEC) via wired displays or over Intel’s WiDi wireless display technology. Further, the GPU supports DirectX 12 in its current iteration as well as OpenGL 4.3 and OpenCL 2.0.

Internal connectivity includes support for two DDR3L SODIMMs (up to 16GB), a single 2.5” solid state drive, one M.2 SSD, an Intel Wireless AC 7265 card (802.11ac+BT), a NFC header, and a header for two USB 2.0 ports.

Intel has not released pricing, but expect it to hit at least $500 since the i5 version without Iris graphics has an MSRP of $399. It is slated to arrive soon with a launch window of Q2 2015.

If 4G speeds of 400Mbps become common there are going to be some very happy media streamers, at least until the bill comes in. In a proof of concept test Huawei EE and Qualcomm demonstrated a 4G LTE carrier aggregated connection in Wembley stadium which hit peak speeds of 400Mbps and should provide most attendees of events at Wembley with speeds hitting up to 150Mbps. The carrier will use the existing 4G LTE network, only tweaking was needed to increase the speeds as opposed to a new standard and so any phone capable of connecting to LTE should be able to take advantage of the speed increase. Check out The Inquirer for more information.

"HUAWEI, EE AND QUALCOMM have demonstrated a blink-and-you-missed-it 4G network at Wembley Stadium that achieved speeds of 400Mbps."

Professional and amateur players of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft can compete for a share of the $25,000 prize pool and other perks, hosted by NVIDIA. Once the pool of players are whittled down to the sixteen invited pros and the top sixteen non-professionals, they will compete in a playoff format. The 32 players at that stage will each receive an NVIDIA Shield Tablet, the top 16 will receive money, and the top eight will get Blizzard World Championship qualifier points may either start their career or get them even closer to being invited to the autumn finals.

Breaking down the above into a little more detail:

Prize Money

Qualification Points

Shield Tablet

1st Place

$10,000

100

✔

2nd Place

$5,000

50

✔

3rd & 4th Place

$1,500

Some

✔

5th - 8th Place

$750

Some

✔

9th - 16th Place

$500

-

✔

17th - 32nd Place

-

-

✔

NVIDIA will be streaming the event as a four-hour event every week, which consist of group-stage highlights. Registration will close on March 19th at noon (EST). The actual playoffs will take place on May 30th and May 31st, also streamed on NVIDIA's Twitch channel.

Just a quick question regarding DirectX 12. I’m planning to buy a new graphics card soon but I want a DirectX 12 card for all the fancy new features so I’m considering either the GTX 970 or 980, the question I have is are these real DirectX 12 cards? Since DirectX 12 development is still ongoing how can these cards be fully DirectX 12 complaint?

In just under a week SIM card maker Gemalto claims to have done a complete security audit of their systems in 85 different countries and reports that "its office networks were compromised, the servers holding the SIM card encryption keys weren't." This is a record worthy of Guinness as most security audits take months or years to complete and the findings tend to discuss probabilities, not absolute certainties. As you might expect The Register and security experts everywhere are doubtful of the claims from a company that did not even know if was compromised less than a week ago that the UK based GCHQ and USA based NSA are unable to compromise your SIM cards encryption when they have the keys in hand. It has not been a good week for anyone who thinks about security.

"Six days ago Gemalto, the world's largest SIM card manufacturer, was told that back in 2010 it had been ransacked by NSA and GCHQ hackers. Today the company gave itself the all-clear: no encryption keys, used to secure phone calls from eavesdroppers, were stolen, it claims."

WZor, a group in Russia that somehow acquires many Windows leaks, has just published screenshots of Windows 10 Build 10022 and Windows Server Build 9926. As far as we can tell, not much has changed. We see neither an upgraded Cortana nor a look at the Spartan browser. The build is not labeled “Microsoft Confidential” though, which makes people believe that it is (or was) intended for public release -- maybe as early as this week.

Honestly, I do not see anything different from the provided screenshots apart from the incremented version number. It is possible that this build addresses back-end issues, leaving the major new features for BUILD in late April. Leaked notes (also by WZor) for build 10014, called an “Early Partner Drop”, suggest that version was designed for hardware and software vendors. Perhaps the upcoming preview build is designed to give a platform for third-parties to develop updates ahead of Microsoft releasing the next (or second-next) big build?

Intel is updating its Atom processor branding to better communicate the expected performance and experience customers can expect from their Intel powered mobile device. In fact, the new branding specifies three tiers. Atom processors will soon come in Atom x3, x5, and x7 flavors. This branding scheme is similar to the Core processor branding using the i3, i5, and i7 labels.

The Atom x3, x5, and x7 chips are low power, efficient processors for battery powered devices and sit below the Core M series which in turn are below the Core i3, i5, and i7 processors. The following infographic shows off the new branding though Intel does not reveal any specific details about these new Atom chips (we will hopefully know more after Mobile World Congress). Of course, Atom x3 chips will reside in smartphones with x5 and x7 chips powering tablets and budget convertibles. The x7 brand represents the flagship processors of the Atom line.

The new branding will begin with the next generation of Atom chips which should include Cherry Trail, the 14nm successor to Bay Trail featuring four x86 Airmont cores and Gen 8 Intel graphics. Cherry Trail (Cherryview SoC) will be used in all manner of mobile devices from entry level 8"+ tablets to larger notebooks and convertibles. It appears that Intel will use Moorefield (a quad core 14nm refresh of Merrifield) through 2015 for smartphones though road maps seem to indicate that Intel's budget SoFIA SoC will also launch this year. SoFIA and Moorefield processors should fall under the Atom x3 brand with the higher powered and higher clocked Cherry Trail chips will use the Atom x5 and x7 monikers.

Update: Currency exchange rates have been corrected. I'm sorry for any confusion!

Intel Foundation is selling off its remaining stake in UK-based Imagination Technologies (IMG.LN). According to JP Morgan, Intel is selling off 13.4 million shares (4.9% of Imagination Technologies) for 245 GBp each. Once all shares are sold, Intel will gross just north of $50.57 Million USD.

Imagination Technologies' PowerVR Rogue Series 6XT GPU is used in Apple's A8-series chips.

Intel first invested in Imagination Technologies back in October of 2006 in a deal to gain access to the company’s PowerVR graphics IP portfolio. Since then, Intel has been slowly moving away from PowerVR graphics in favor of it’s own internal HD graphics GPUs. (Further, Intel sold off 10% of its IMG.LN stake in June of last year.) Even Intel’s low cost Atom line of SoCs has mostly moved to Intel GPUs with the exception of the mobile Merrifield and Moorefield” smartphone/tablet SoCs.

The expansion of Intel’s own graphics IP combined with Imagination Technologies acquisition of MIPS are reportedly the “inevitable” reasons for the sale. According to The Guardian, industry analysts have speculated that, as it stands, Intel is a minor customer of Imagination Technologies at less than 5% for graphics (a licensing agreement signed this year doesn’t rule out PowerVR graphics permanently despite the sale). Imagination Technologies still has a decent presence in the mobile (ARM-based) space with customers including Apple, MediaTek, Rockchip, Freescale, and Texas Instruments.

Currently, the company’s stock price is sitting at 258.75 GBp (~$3.99 USD) which seems to indicate that the Intel sell off news was “inevitable” and was already priced in or simply does not have investors that concerned.

What do you think about the sale? Where does this leave Intel as far as graphics goes? Will we see Intel HD Graphics scale down to smartphones or will the company go with a PowerVR competitor? Would Intel really work with ARM’s Mali, Qualcomm’s Adreno, or Samsung’s rumored custom GPU cores? On that note, an Intel powered smartphone with NVIDIA Tegra graphics would be amazing (hint, hint Intel!)

That's right, for those of you who pre-ordered Homeworld Remastered and for anyone that pops by Steam to purchase it, your productivity is in for a serious hit as you try to guide your fleet to a new homeworld and then defend it. For those lucky and old enough to have played through it originally you will find the look vastly improved and from what Rock, Paper, SHOTGUN and other reviewers have found you will also love the improved interface. For those who have not had the pleasure of playing through these two games before, the $33 investment is more than worth it, especially with improved multiplayer coming in the near future. Check out the videos and overview of the poster child for revamped legacy games here.

You will have to take a break this Saturday though, as the Fragging Frogs Virtual LAN party #9 kicks off at 10AM ET and will end when the last frog drops. You can check out the official thread in the forums right here to get all the information you need to participate. AMD and other mystery sponsors will be giving away prizes to those who log into and participate in the TeamSpeak channels; not to mention it is the best way to chat in game and in the general lobby. You can also check out the list of games that will be played as well as links to the mods and patches you will need, please download and install them before Saturday to maximize your playing time. See you there!

"In terms of strategy games which ‘need’ remastering, Homeworld was probably somewhere at the bottom of the list. But in terms of strategy games which really, truly benefit from remastering – well, this is a chart-topper."

This has been a bad week for the secure socket layer and the news just keeps getting worse. Comodo provides around one out of every three SSL certs currently in use as they have, until now, had a stirling reputation and were a trusted provider. It turns out that this reputation may not be deserved seeing as how their Internet Security 2014 product ships with an application called Adtrustmedia PrivDog, which is enabled by default. Not only does this app install a custom root CA certificate which intercepts connections to websites to be able to insert customized ads like SuperFish does it can also turn invalid HTTPS certificates into valid ones. That means that an attacker can use PrivDog to spoof your banks SSL cert, redirect you to a fake page and grab your credentials, while all the time your browser reports a valid and secure connection to the site.

The only good news from The Register's article is that this specific vulnerability is only present in PrivDog versions 3.0.96.0 and 3.0.97.0 and so has limited distribution. The fact that this indicates the entire SSL certificate model is broken and even those who create the certs to assure your security feel that inserting a man in the middle attack into their software does not contravene their entire reason for existing is incredibly depressing.

Vertical mice sometimes help those with issues with their cubital or carpal tunnels by relieving pressure due to repetitive arm and wrist movement. They have been around for a while but do not often get reviewed which is why it might be worth checking out eTeknix today. The Adesso E10 is wireless which is relatively uncommon un this type of mouse as is the DPI switch. In addition it has 4 buttons and a mouse wheel so it could still serve as a gaming mouse, at least for right handed gamers who prefer this style of mouse. Check it out if your mousing fingers get numb while you are sitting at your computer.

"The peripheral market is booming, there’s a huge range of products with a wide range of features available between each device, so finding something suitable for your needs shouldn’t be too difficult. Naturally, not all products are created equally and some are designed for a more niche part of the market than others, such as the iMouse E10 which we have in for review today."

Tracking your smartphones location via aggregate battery usage is not the most efficient or accurate method but it can be done and Samsung (and others) have not provided a switch which makes that particular data private. Researchers have shown that by tracking the battery drain of the 3G cellular radio on the battery one can determine distance from the cellular base station the phone is connected to and a coarse location based on interference environmental factors such as buildings which partially block the signal. It is only a very coarse locator but does give better information than just the base station the phone is connected to and as we are creatures of habit it allows tracking normal patterns of movement. This is nowhere near as accurate as GPS tracking and does require a bit of work to pull off but as battery usage and levels are sent by the phone in the clear with no method of preventing that it should cause some privacy concerns for users. You can read the research paper (in PDF) by following the link from The Inquirer.

"SCIENTISTS have warned of a new smartphone risk after discovering that battery power can be used to track a person's movements."